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Today’s Dream Home comes to us from Averill of Odi et Amo who happens to be a fellow Houston blogger. She is super talented and has beautiful taste. After you check out her “Dream Home” post here, be sure to check out her post from yesterday on the nursery she is designing for her baby. It’s fabulous!

When Paloma asked me to blog about my "dream home," I was initially at something of a loss on where to start. There are, I’ll admit, quite a number of styles of homes that I love. There’s the crisp coastal house: decked out in crisp blues and whites, with tons of gorgeous sunlight pouring in — the type of home you’d find out in the Hamptons or Cape Cod. Then there’s the cozy mid century meets modern family home: tons of wood work, soft furnishings, and character to spare — very California. And then there’s the high drama, formal Southern home with loads of Chinoiserie, metallics and crystal, but with just enough modern thrown in to make it feel young and fresh. The type of home that teeters every so gracefully between fantastic and gaudy. Ultimately, I’ve decided to show you this latter type of home as my dream home — precisely because it’s the one I’m least likely to own (both for financial and practical considerations) and therefore the most dream worthy.

But enough with the talk, yes? Let’s get on with the eye candy. Any grand Southern house worth its salt begins with a grand entryway. And you can’t get much grander than this one from Suzanne Kasler with its stunning curved staircase. The black and white floors are graphic, but also timeless. The white of the entryway is also a great palette cleanser for the very colorful rooms that open out onto it….

While the reality of my life makes a formal living room or salon completely superfluous, I can’t help but include one in my dream home. A room that appears to be reserved for sophisticated cocktail parties and holidays, but with the kind of comfortable furniture that beckons on rainy Saturdays as well. I’ve been having a love affair with purple for the past year or so, and the mix of lilac, camel and silver in this room is perfectly delicious. I also like how more modern pieces like the Lucite coffee table and yellow gourd lamp keep the room from feeling too old and stodgy.

Powder rooms are a wonderful opportunity to really let loose creatively and make a big statement without running of the risk of it clashing with the rest of your home or you getting tired of it (after all, how much time do you really spend in there anyway?!). I love everything about this powder room: the walls, the Venetian mirror, the wall mounted fixture, the sink….

Like a formal living room, a formal dining room is another indulgence that my life doesn’t really justify; however, in my dream house it will be an absolute show stopper. I love the glossy blue in this dining room by Suzanne Kasler. The mismatched dining chairs break up the symmetry of the room and add a casual touch that I find appealing.

Who wouldn’t love a Butler’s pantry to store china, crystal and serveware? The blue marble and hand painted ceiling (made to mimic the fantastic ceiling at Grand Central in NYC) leave me weak in the knees and make this small space so much more than just a place for storage.

Now we’re entering the less formal part of the house: the private rooms, the inner sanctum reserved for close friends and family. While I currently have a kitchen with very dark cabinets, in many ways I long for the crisp, classic feel of an (almost!) all-white kitchen complete with Carrera marble counters (be still my heart!). The turquoise subway tile backsplash bring in the hit of strong color that I’m always drawn to and is a great, modern touch. The potfiller is one of those small indulgences I’d love to have in my own kitchen.

I’d carry over the turquoise tile from the kitchen to the adjacent eat-in breakfast area, accenting it with some nice dark woods and plenty of crisp white. A bench in a breakfast nook is key and I absolutely love the bamboo chairs. To top it off, this room combines two of my favorite motifs: Chinoiserie and the beach.

Okay I’ll admit that this room is a bit over the top, but it’s too fabulous for me not to include in my dream home. The kelly green walls with the largely black and white furnishings makes for a fun, graphic combination. And I know my husband would love the black marble fireplace surround — he wanted something similar in our own house. The gilt ceiling and coffee tables bring in the always essential touch of metallic and pick up on the growing trend away from nickel and silver towards brass and gold.

Any proper Southern home requires a solarium/sunroom/garden room that opens out onto a large covered porch. Brown and white isn’t a combination that I normally gravitate towards, but I love the mix of patterns here and the crispness of the white trim against the chocolate walls. I also love the idea of subverting typical solarium/garden room decor (think lots and lots of chintz) in favor of a darker, more monochromatic approach. I imagine this is the room I’d also use as my office for blogging, catching up on work, etc.

My solarium would open up onto a large, wraparound porch. The brown and white theme is continued with the primary print, but with the added infusion of purple. In the South, many porch ceilings are painted sky blue (an old wives’ tale suggests that painting a porch the color of the sky discourages wasps and other unpleasant bugs from building nests as they’re "tricked" into thinking the ceiling is in fact sky). The purple ceiling is a great nod to that tradition, but with a modern twist, giving you a wonderful surprise of color…even if it doesn’t exactly discourage the bugs.

A small guest room is made all the cozier with dark slate gray walls and a drool-worthy quatrefoil bed (that bed from Ironies still tops my list of "wish I could afford to own but can’t"). Love the architecture the unadorned canopy gives the room and how it picks up on the trim Thom added to the walls.

I spent a good chunk of my staycation over the holidays working on my son’s nursery. While I’m going with an aqua and orange color scheme, I drew heavily upon this room’s clean, modern feel and white + walnut furniture for inspiration. Besides, how fabulous is that alphabet wall?

Like my dream kitchen, my dream bathroom is a bit calmer than the rest of the house and full of very traditional materials (there’s that Carrera marble again!) and lots of white. A big soaker tub would be front and center as I’ve always been a big believer in the restorative power of bubble baths. I’d like to imagine that those french doors open out onto a very private garden, where I might enjoy a morning coffee or a glass of wine after dinner.

In my dream house, I’d have my own walk-in closet/dressing room — and it would definitely be pink! I’m an avid lover of shoes, so there’s little doubt that I’d display my collection front and center. Ample built-ins would ensure that the room always stayed neat and organized.

Thanks Paloma for asking me to participate in this wonderful series. It was great fun pulling these images together and daydreaming about such fabulous spaces!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I ADORE this series! This dream home is fabulous! I’d quite happily take the kelly green den, blue laquered bedroom and that closet- die! Gorgeous home Averill. xo

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